> Oh wow, one model, holy god, BUY NOW BUY NOW. Please this argument
> gets stupid. One cheap model does not make all macs cheaper then PCs.

Sarcasm ... not an art that becomes you The point of the post is that I picked up an (admittedly old) iBook for what it would have cost me to purchase a "cheap and nasty" underspecced PC laptop which was originally all I thought I could afford. Yes, it's old; yes, it's an obselete model; no, it doesn't mean all macs are cheaper than PC's.

> Also their frankly isnt very much that is interesting for most in the ibook.

"Most" or "you"? Not everyone thinks a P4 3GHz 1GB ram is an essential purchase for web browsing, office tasks and a few games. The vast majority of people I meet through work are running between 500MHz - 1.5GHz with 128/256MB ram with no major incentive to upgrade, and we're talking about nearly a hundred people across many industries here. In fact I can only think of about half a dozen people I know who have a system over 2GHz!

> There is probably something you saw in it, but not for most people. I would
> guess you wanted a 12 inch screen. Now I know there are many mac die
> hards that love this. But frankly smaller isn't something that most people
> want.

The compact size was one major selling point as I like my portable to be just that. The 4+ hour battery life also helped (beat the hell out of the 1-2 hours of most lower end PC laptops). The build quality was a pleasant side effect I didn't expect at the price I paid. As it happens, the most likely alternative to this would have been one of the smaller Sony's but I was scouring ebay for weeks with little of any interest within my budget.

> I would safely bet that I could find much more disirable PC laptops for less
> or equal cost.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as they say! I looked for many months and spent my money on the iBook because it met all of my criteria.

And it's not that I'm a Mac zealot or anything either - I have had an IBM PC since the days of 386's and have run Windows (3.1 - XP) for most of that. I recommend upgrading to Windows XP to people who are still using Win 95/98/ME even though I've been running Linux for the past few years.

I have seen Mac's at various stages and hadn't really been impressed, but that changed with the new iBook/iMac designs and Mac OS X. Mac's became an object of desire but I really didn't think I could ever justify the cost. Now I have one and have been instantly impressed.

> Hell, If I only had that much I'd buy a emac, or I'd spend a bit more and get
> a remaining stock Dual Powermac, or a 1.6ghz G5.

All being highly portable as per my requirements. Pay attention please!

> Right now It's a hard sell to sell anyone anything less then a G5 mac. Which
> really cuts down on the options. A 1.6ghz G5 powermac would be your
> cheapest option, I think they are 1600 bucks.

See my above comment re: "beauty" and "beholder". You should try PC shopping in the UK sometime - it's a whole different ballgame.